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Summary Report Hair Analysis Panel Discussion Exploring The State Of The Science

Hair Analysis Panel Discussion: Section 6.5

Historical Document

This Web site is provided by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
ONLY as an historical reference for the public health community. It is no longer being maintained and the data
it contains may no longer be current and/or accurate.

Section 6
6.5 Next Steps To Be Taken by ATSDR

Dr. Susten described ATSDR's anticipated next steps related to
evaluating the utility of hair analysis. First, a summary report
of this panel meeting will be generated and released (the report
will be posted on ATSDR's Web site). Second, ATSDR will generate
a report related to lessons learned from the panel discussions (and
possibly publish it in the open literature). In addition, internally,
the agency plans to do the following:

Continue to provide education to physicians and other health
professionals.

Continue to develop substance-specific toxicological profiles.
The profiles are an excellent resource and contain information on
biomarkers of exposure. In light of the panel discussions, additional
language may be added regarding hair analysis (e.g., in terms of
limitations, etc.) on a substance-specific basis.

Develop guidance on hair analysis to support public health assessments
and health studies conducted by the agency. That is, develop criteria
for determining when to consider hair analysis as part of an ATSDR
exposure investigation.

These activities will help all of ATSDR's divisions as well as
professionals in the community.